Many tasks expose human workers to adverse, or hostile, environmental conditions. Fighting fires, repairing underwater structures, reconnoitering an area, exploring planets, rescuing hostages and stranded people, and attacking enemy positions expose the personnel involved to a variety of risks to life and limb. For some time now robots have been employed to accomplish portions of these tasks. Some robots are simply equipped with wheels or tracks and can only operate on flat, unobstructed surfaces. Even the presence of small obstacles, ledges, steps, ravines and the like disable these simple devises. More complex wheeled robots, like the Mars rovers of recent years, have their wheels mounted on arms that allow the wheels some freedom to move vertically. Yet these robots may still become hung up on larger obstacles. Biologically inspired bipedal robots have also been introduced in an effort to overcome obstacles. These bipedal robots include complex leg mechanisms that mimic the walking motion of a human being. The software required to operate these mechanisms is quite complex and can do nothing to save the robot should it be toppled.
Also, because many robots use air-breathing engines for power they cannot be used in space or underwater. The use of environmental air for combustion also poses problems if the robot should enter an environment contaminated by airborne chemicals (e.g. pollution, poisoning, smoke, etc.) Many of these substances can clog air filters or attack the hot interior surfaces of the engine and thereby precipitate failure of the engine. Further, many currently available robots use their onboard power supplies inefficiently thereby precluding long missions. The inefficiency is in part due to the need for the robot to run the engine even while loitering to have power available in case a disturbance attempts to topple the robot.
Despite the problems with currently available robots, the need for robots has often been cited by many private and public organizations. Therefore a need exists for efficient robots capable of navigating around obstacles and escaping from traps.